Choosing between Crystal Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005:

If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
and why?
Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
that are specific to our decision making:
- What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting tool?
For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
- In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
missing and did you find a suitable work around?
- Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
intended for non-IT users?
- How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes to
the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
production server and the test environment.
- Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
- How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based reports
(like purchase orders and quotes)?
- Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes: SQL
Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
- How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
- What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
(licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
- Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
- Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
community?I did some research on SSRS and wrote a white paper about it. You can check
it out on my website.
www.CrystalReportsBook.com
HTH,
Brian Bischof
"Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
> and why?
> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> that are specific to our decision making:
> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
tool?
> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> intended for non-IT users?
> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
to
> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> production server and the test environment.
> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
reports
> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
SQL
> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> community?
>|||Keep in mind the improvements (report builder an end user tool which is in
addition to report designer, user sortable columns, calendar control,
extensions to be able to add own objects, new winform and webform controls,
etc). Lots of new things coming with 2005
Bruce Loehle-Conger
MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
"Brian Bischof" <Brian@.NoSpamBischofSystems.com> wrote in message
news:eoiamKEnFHA.4064@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>I did some research on SSRS and wrote a white paper about it. You can check
> it out on my website.
> www.CrystalReportsBook.com
>
> HTH,
> Brian Bischof
>
> "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>> choose
>> and why?
>> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
>> that are specific to our decision making:
>> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
> tool?
>> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
>> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>> intended for non-IT users?
>> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
> to
>> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
>> production server and the test environment.
>> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
>> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
>> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
>> can
>> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
>> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
>> reports,
>> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
> reports
>> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
> SQL
>> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
>> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>> community?
>>
>|||I have used both CE and RS. The white paper written by Brian Bischoff is one
of the most comprehensive comparisons I have seen. I don't completely agree
with all of his conclusions but he does a great job of pointing out the
stragths and weaknesses of both products. Here are a couple of answers to
some of your specific questions.
I have found RS to be more stable and usable as a method to distribute
reports over an intranet to internal customers. We have been using RS since
the week of it's initial release. We have had no problems that required more
that a reboot of the server. This has given us a total down time of less that
one hour since we started. We have over 300 published reports accessed by 50
end users.
Changing the data source on reports in RS is extremely easy. You can
develop a group of reports in one solution then chage the data source for all
of them in under 30 seconds by changing the connection string for the data
source. I am not up to date on CE but it was more difficult in version 9.
Each table in each report had to be remapped.
Drill down reports in RS are very easy to use and when exported to excel
have subtotals in the spreadsheet so they are still drill down reports.
Exporting - RS exports to Excel much more easily with better results when
your report uses a table object for the data. If you don't have designed
page breaks RS exports the page headers only once and if you add page breaks
after groups each group gets it's own worksheet.
The biggest drawbacks for RS is the lack of Multiselect parameters and at
this point an unproven End User Report designer.
My personal opinion is RS while lacking the polish of a mature product like
CE it is gaining quickly. We switched from CE to RS and it has been a much
better product for our particular situation.
"Tony" wrote:
> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
> and why?
> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> that are specific to our decision making:
> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting tool?
> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> intended for non-IT users?
> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes to
> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> production server and the test environment.
> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based reports
> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes: SQL
> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> community?
>
>|||Oh yes, multi-parameters is coming with RS 2005.
Bruce Loehle-Conger
MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
"johnE" <johnE@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:748FEB55-0BB8-4DAD-B5E6-FE6B71300CFB@.microsoft.com...
>I have used both CE and RS. The white paper written by Brian Bischoff is
>one
> of the most comprehensive comparisons I have seen. I don't completely
> agree
> with all of his conclusions but he does a great job of pointing out the
> stragths and weaknesses of both products. Here are a couple of answers to
> some of your specific questions.
> I have found RS to be more stable and usable as a method to distribute
> reports over an intranet to internal customers. We have been using RS
> since
> the week of it's initial release. We have had no problems that required
> more
> that a reboot of the server. This has given us a total down time of less
> that
> one hour since we started. We have over 300 published reports accessed by
> 50
> end users.
> Changing the data source on reports in RS is extremely easy. You can
> develop a group of reports in one solution then chage the data source for
> all
> of them in under 30 seconds by changing the connection string for the data
> source. I am not up to date on CE but it was more difficult in version 9.
> Each table in each report had to be remapped.
> Drill down reports in RS are very easy to use and when exported to excel
> have subtotals in the spreadsheet so they are still drill down reports.
> Exporting - RS exports to Excel much more easily with better results when
> your report uses a table object for the data. If you don't have designed
> page breaks RS exports the page headers only once and if you add page
> breaks
> after groups each group gets it's own worksheet.
> The biggest drawbacks for RS is the lack of Multiselect parameters and at
> this point an unproven End User Report designer.
> My personal opinion is RS while lacking the polish of a mature product
> like
> CE it is gaining quickly. We switched from CE to RS and it has been a
> much
> better product for our particular situation.
> "Tony" wrote:
>> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>> choose
>> and why?
>> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
>> that are specific to our decision making:
>> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
>> tool?
>> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
>> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>> intended for non-IT users?
>> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
>> to
>> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
>> production server and the test environment.
>> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
>> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
>> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
>> can
>> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
>> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
>> reports,
>> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
>> reports
>> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
>> SQL
>> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
>> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>> community?
>>|||there is no templates, except when you create a report, after this, no luck,
you have to change every objects to apply the new colors...
there is a lack of capabilities in the charts component
there is a lack of functionalities to "merge" 2 datasets to do some
calculations
interactivity in the reports is great (show/hide sections, easy drill
through...)
the scripting part is easy too to do a lot of jobs (VB.net code). today we
deploy 100 reports with a simple script. This include folder creation,
report upload, report parameters...
2005 provide some new features like encrypted parameters, multiselect
prompts.
because RS is a webservice, you can very easely develop around it.
also, there is some OLAP Client tools on the market with RS integration
(like ProClarity)
you can also use home made .NET component, like libraries, in your report.
creating purchase orders report is easy, and you can send this type of
report easely to the users by email or PDF files.
"Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
> and why?
> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> that are specific to our decision making:
> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
> tool? For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down
> time?
> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> intended for non-IT users?
> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
> to the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> production server and the test environment.
> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
> reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
> SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> community?
>|||And let's not forget, if you have a licensed SQL Server, SQL Server
Reporting Services is a free product.
If you want to find out more about it's capabilities you also might want to
check the SQL Server 2005 Readiness Kit (includes the June CTP).
There are a lot of white papers on it and also hands-on-labs that give you
the possibility to run Hands-on-Labs and test all of the SQL functionality.
Personally I do believe SQL Server Reporting Services has some great
strenghts over Crystal Reports.
Also keep in mind that future Microsoft product releases as Axapta /
Navision / Microsoft CRM will use SQL Server Reporting Services as their
core reporting tool.
SQL Server Reporting Services is a requirement for MOM 2005.
The Report Designer within SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 gives you the
possibility to use an MDX query builder.
Very nifty is that you can export that RDL definition and also use it with
Reporting Services 2005.
Look at the benefits of creation additional datasources, additional
rendering methods and the possibility to enable caching of reports with
applying filters.
--
Dandy Weyn
[MCSE-MCSA-MCDBA-MCDST-MCT]
http://www.dandyman.net
Check my SQL Server Resource Pages at http://www.dandyman.net/sql
"Jéjé" <willgart@.AAAhotmailBBB.com> wrote in message
news:%23Y%23it1HnFHA.1444@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> there is no templates, except when you create a report, after this, no
> luck, you have to change every objects to apply the new colors...
> there is a lack of capabilities in the charts component
> there is a lack of functionalities to "merge" 2 datasets to do some
> calculations
> interactivity in the reports is great (show/hide sections, easy drill
> through...)
> the scripting part is easy too to do a lot of jobs (VB.net code). today we
> deploy 100 reports with a simple script. This include folder creation,
> report upload, report parameters...
> 2005 provide some new features like encrypted parameters, multiselect
> prompts.
> because RS is a webservice, you can very easely develop around it.
> also, there is some OLAP Client tools on the market with RS integration
> (like ProClarity)
> you can also use home made .NET component, like libraries, in your report.
> creating purchase orders report is easy, and you can send this type of
> report easely to the users by email or PDF files.
> "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>> choose and why?
>> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
>> that are specific to our decision making:
>> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
>> tool? For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down
>> time?
>> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>> intended for non-IT users?
>> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
>> to the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
>> production server and the test environment.
>> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
>> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
>> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
>> can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
>> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
>> reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper
>> based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
>> SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
>> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>> community?
>>
>|||Hi:
I have a question about RS licence... How i get the product?, We have a
Enterprise Licence for SQL Server 2000, but in the install CD only have SQL
Server 2000, Analysis Services and English Query... should I get it from
internet? (download?).. is there some microsoft course for that product?
Thanks
Rodrigo
"Dandy Weyn [Dandyman]" wrote:
> And let's not forget, if you have a licensed SQL Server, SQL Server
> Reporting Services is a free product.
> If you want to find out more about it's capabilities you also might want to
> check the SQL Server 2005 Readiness Kit (includes the June CTP).
> There are a lot of white papers on it and also hands-on-labs that give you
> the possibility to run Hands-on-Labs and test all of the SQL functionality.
> Personally I do believe SQL Server Reporting Services has some great
> strenghts over Crystal Reports.
> Also keep in mind that future Microsoft product releases as Axapta /
> Navision / Microsoft CRM will use SQL Server Reporting Services as their
> core reporting tool.
> SQL Server Reporting Services is a requirement for MOM 2005.
> The Report Designer within SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 gives you the
> possibility to use an MDX query builder.
> Very nifty is that you can export that RDL definition and also use it with
> Reporting Services 2005.
> Look at the benefits of creation additional datasources, additional
> rendering methods and the possibility to enable caching of reports with
> applying filters.
> --
> Dandy Weyn
> [MCSE-MCSA-MCDBA-MCDST-MCT]
> http://www.dandyman.net
> Check my SQL Server Resource Pages at http://www.dandyman.net/sql
> "Jéjé" <willgart@.AAAhotmailBBB.com> wrote in message
> news:%23Y%23it1HnFHA.1444@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> > there is no templates, except when you create a report, after this, no
> > luck, you have to change every objects to apply the new colors...
> >
> > there is a lack of capabilities in the charts component
> > there is a lack of functionalities to "merge" 2 datasets to do some
> > calculations
> >
> > interactivity in the reports is great (show/hide sections, easy drill
> > through...)
> >
> > the scripting part is easy too to do a lot of jobs (VB.net code). today we
> > deploy 100 reports with a simple script. This include folder creation,
> > report upload, report parameters...
> >
> > 2005 provide some new features like encrypted parameters, multiselect
> > prompts.
> >
> > because RS is a webservice, you can very easely develop around it.
> >
> > also, there is some OLAP Client tools on the market with RS integration
> > (like ProClarity)
> >
> > you can also use home made .NET component, like libraries, in your report.
> >
> > creating purchase orders report is easy, and you can send this type of
> > report easely to the users by email or PDF files.
> >
> > "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> >> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> >> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
> >> choose and why?
> >>
> >> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> >> that are specific to our decision making:
> >> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
> >> tool? For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down
> >> time?
> >> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> >> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> >> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> >> intended for non-IT users?
> >> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
> >> to the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> >> production server and the test environment.
> >> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> >> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> >> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
> >> can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> >> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
> >> reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper
> >> based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> >> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
> >> SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> >> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> >> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> >> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> >> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> >> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> >> community?
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>|||Oh, where to start...
> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
> choose and why?
We were and we did: it's RS from here on out.
I've been working with the version of Crystal that's included with VS2K3
(and older versions prior to that; back to Crystal 3.0). We're not about to
give Crystal any more money for newer versions.
Someone here priced an enterprise-level Crystal rollout. I don't know for
sure if they were looking at Crystal Enterprise or some other Crystal
package, but the price was in the $50K range.
> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the
> reporting tool?
Seriously lacking. Commonly the designer crashes and brings down the entire
IDE. You'd think I would have learned to stop cutting and pasting lines by
now, but anyway...
Too sensitive to underlying database changes. Add or remove a column, and
more often than not, you're left staring at one of Crystal's two error
messages. No attempt to print and just skip the data from the column, no
message saying "this column no longer exists," no attempt to see if the
column simply swapped positions with its neighbor.
> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance
> or down time?
We had big problems with the web form viewer not closing database
connections. We've rewritten all the reports now to bind to datasets that we
load ourselves. Crystal no longer touches the database directly.
> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features
> are missing and did you find a suitable work around?
Useful error messages. MIA. No workaround.
Usable Excel export. Now that we're bound to datasets, instead of using
Crystal's Excel export, we spit the dataset out to an XMLSS-format file that
Excel can read.
Subreports can only be nested one level deep. I've wanted more, but it's
never been a big deal to work around.
Before binding to datasets, with the web form viewer, every time you went
from page-to-page within a report, the underlying query would get rerun. For
some reports, that meant you waited three minutes every time you moved to
the next page. You can use what they call "cached" reports, but that led us
into other issues, like the orphaned connections.
In general, you fight and fight with the bloody thing, and eventually get it
to the "good enough" point.
> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> intended for non-IT users?
Not with VS2K3. I think Crystal Info (Crystal Enterprise?) (a separate
product with a separate price tag) is intended for end user adhoc reporting,
but I've never used it.
> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without
> making changes to the design template or programming? For
> example, switching between the production server and the test
> environment.
It's kind of a pain, and you wind up fighting with generic "Logon failed"
errors a lot (even though half the time, the problem isn't actually a logon
failure...), but once you've got the code written, you don't have to write
it any more.
Which brings up another major problem: lousy, lousy, lousy error messages.
_Everything_ is either a "logon failure" or "the system has thrown an
exception of type exception." Everything. I bet if I went through the .exe
with a hex editor, those would be the only two error messages in there.
Messages from the underlying data source are NEVER propogated up to you.
> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For
> example, does the platform support a concept similar to object
> inheritence where a new report can inherit design elements from
> an existing design template...
No.
> ...or can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at
> runtime?
Yes.
> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web
> based reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and also
> polished paper based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
Once you endure the pain, the paper can be as good as you want it to be. The
web view and the PDF can be a little or a lot off, though in general it's
good enough. I've got a handful where the web view is just completely
garbage. I would hope the WinForm viewer could do a better job than the
WebForm viewer, since it's not constrained by HTML, but I don't know.
If your're using the built-in toolbar in the web viewer, you have to put up
with the stupid Crystal logo in your face or beat it into submission, either
via CSS or by replacing the .gif.
Rich interactivity? I think you can do some drill-down type stuff, but what
I've seen I wouldn't call rich. We don't have a need for it, so I haven't
tried it, but I don't have high hopes.
> - Does the tool support a diverse range of data sources that
> includes: SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
You can hit anything with an OLEDB or ODBC driver, which covers most any
database you'd want to use. You can also bind to datasets, so anything you
can put into a dataset can be sourced. If you buy the full-blown package you
gain other sources, like MS Exchange, NT event logs, IIS logs, etc.
> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
Excel export can be pretty bad. A single report column can bounce between
multiple Excel columns, headers don't line up with their data, lotsa blank
columns thrown in sporadically, etc. It tries (poorly) to do an exact
_visual_ recreation of the report in Excel, which is rarely what you really
want when you're dumping to Excel. If you want a spreadsheet it's probably
because you want to work with the data, which means you really don't want
things like page breaks/headers/footers in the middle of data columns.
PDF is better, but still has problems with WYSIWYG. When you compare screen
output to printed output to PDF output, lines wrap in different places,
columns may be wide enough when PDF'd but not when printed, things that are
exactly aligned in the designer will be off a few pixels when PDF'd, and if
you use non-default line spacing, the screen output (ASP.NET) goes totally
to pot.
There is no plain-text export option. You get rich text, Word, Excel, HTML,
and PDF. (Remember, this is the version included with VS2K3.) No text, no
CSV. Full-blown version gets you more.
> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
Lousy, lousy, lousy error messages. Regular crashes. $50K price tags. Stupid
"keycodev2.dll" problems. Screwball object models. _Multiple_ screwball
object models. (What Microsoft is to data access models, Crystal is to
report object models.) Weird home-grown formula language. Deployment
problems. Version conflicts. (This is NOT a .NET reporting platform. This a
DLL-hell-based reporting platform with a .NET wrapper.)
> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
> component?
What report management component?
Seriously, though, the version in the VS2K3 box is targeted for embedded use
by developers, so there's nothing an administrator could use for anything.
Crystal Enterprise probably does, but I don't know.
> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> community?
There's a well-established community of people who can't stand the product,
but that's probably not what you meant...|||go to the SQL Server web site, there is a link to order the CD Rom.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/reporting/howtobuy/retailfulfillment.mspx
"Rodrigo" <Rodrigo@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:F5ED4AC3-6C22-4E56-A61E-960D8955C43F@.microsoft.com...
> Hi:
> I have a question about RS licence... How i get the product?, We have a
> Enterprise Licence for SQL Server 2000, but in the install CD only have
> SQL
> Server 2000, Analysis Services and English Query... should I get it from
> internet? (download?).. is there some microsoft course for that product?
> Thanks
> Rodrigo
> "Dandy Weyn [Dandyman]" wrote:
>> And let's not forget, if you have a licensed SQL Server, SQL Server
>> Reporting Services is a free product.
>> If you want to find out more about it's capabilities you also might want
>> to
>> check the SQL Server 2005 Readiness Kit (includes the June CTP).
>> There are a lot of white papers on it and also hands-on-labs that give
>> you
>> the possibility to run Hands-on-Labs and test all of the SQL
>> functionality.
>> Personally I do believe SQL Server Reporting Services has some great
>> strenghts over Crystal Reports.
>> Also keep in mind that future Microsoft product releases as Axapta /
>> Navision / Microsoft CRM will use SQL Server Reporting Services as their
>> core reporting tool.
>> SQL Server Reporting Services is a requirement for MOM 2005.
>> The Report Designer within SQL Server Reporting Services 2005 gives you
>> the
>> possibility to use an MDX query builder.
>> Very nifty is that you can export that RDL definition and also use it
>> with
>> Reporting Services 2005.
>> Look at the benefits of creation additional datasources, additional
>> rendering methods and the possibility to enable caching of reports with
>> applying filters.
>> --
>> Dandy Weyn
>> [MCSE-MCSA-MCDBA-MCDST-MCT]
>> http://www.dandyman.net
>> Check my SQL Server Resource Pages at http://www.dandyman.net/sql
>> "Jéjé" <willgart@.AAAhotmailBBB.com> wrote in message
>> news:%23Y%23it1HnFHA.1444@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> > there is no templates, except when you create a report, after this, no
>> > luck, you have to change every objects to apply the new colors...
>> >
>> > there is a lack of capabilities in the charts component
>> > there is a lack of functionalities to "merge" 2 datasets to do some
>> > calculations
>> >
>> > interactivity in the reports is great (show/hide sections, easy drill
>> > through...)
>> >
>> > the scripting part is easy too to do a lot of jobs (VB.net code). today
>> > we
>> > deploy 100 reports with a simple script. This include folder creation,
>> > report upload, report parameters...
>> >
>> > 2005 provide some new features like encrypted parameters, multiselect
>> > prompts.
>> >
>> > because RS is a webservice, you can very easely develop around it.
>> >
>> > also, there is some OLAP Client tools on the market with RS integration
>> > (like ProClarity)
>> >
>> > you can also use home made .NET component, like libraries, in your
>> > report.
>> >
>> > creating purchase orders report is easy, and you can send this type of
>> > report easely to the users by email or PDF files.
>> >
>> > "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> > news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> >> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>> >> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>> >> choose and why?
>> >>
>> >> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following
>> >> questions
>> >> that are specific to our decision making:
>> >> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
>> >> tool? For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or
>> >> down
>> >> time?
>> >> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>> >> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>> >> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>> >> intended for non-IT users?
>> >> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making
>> >> changes
>> >> to the design template or programming? For example, switching between
>> >> the
>> >> production server and the test environment.
>> >> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example,
>> >> does
>> >> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a
>> >> new
>> >> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
>> >> can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at
>> >> runtime?
>> >> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
>> >> reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished
>> >> paper
>> >> based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>> >> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that
>> >> includes:
>> >> SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>> >> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>> >> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>> >> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>> >> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
>> >> component?
>> >> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>> >> community?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>>|||Dewayne, the problems you listed those are problems you had with Crystal
Reports? I'm new here and got way confused reading your post, no offence.
"Dewayne Christensen" wrote:
> Oh, where to start...
> > If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> > Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
> > choose and why?
> We were and we did: it's RS from here on out.
> I've been working with the version of Crystal that's included with VS2K3
> (and older versions prior to that; back to Crystal 3.0). We're not about to
> give Crystal any more money for newer versions.
> Someone here priced an enterprise-level Crystal rollout. I don't know for
> sure if they were looking at Crystal Enterprise or some other Crystal
> package, but the price was in the $50K range.
>
> > - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the
> > reporting tool?
> Seriously lacking. Commonly the designer crashes and brings down the entire
> IDE. You'd think I would have learned to stop cutting and pasting lines by
> now, but anyway...
> Too sensitive to underlying database changes. Add or remove a column, and
> more often than not, you're left staring at one of Crystal's two error
> messages. No attempt to print and just skip the data from the column, no
> message saying "this column no longer exists," no attempt to see if the
> column simply swapped positions with its neighbor.
>
> > For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance
> > or down time?
> We had big problems with the web form viewer not closing database
> connections. We've rewritten all the reports now to bind to datasets that we
> load ourselves. Crystal no longer touches the database directly.
>
> > - In your experience with using the tool, what important features
> > are missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> Useful error messages. MIA. No workaround.
> Usable Excel export. Now that we're bound to datasets, instead of using
> Crystal's Excel export, we spit the dataset out to an XMLSS-format file that
> Excel can read.
> Subreports can only be nested one level deep. I've wanted more, but it's
> never been a big deal to work around.
> Before binding to datasets, with the web form viewer, every time you went
> from page-to-page within a report, the underlying query would get rerun. For
> some reports, that meant you waited three minutes every time you moved to
> the next page. You can use what they call "cached" reports, but that led us
> into other issues, like the orphaned connections.
> In general, you fight and fight with the bloody thing, and eventually get it
> to the "good enough" point.
>
> > - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> > intended for non-IT users?
> Not with VS2K3. I think Crystal Info (Crystal Enterprise?) (a separate
> product with a separate price tag) is intended for end user adhoc reporting,
> but I've never used it.
>
> > - How easily can a report's data source be changed without
> > making changes to the design template or programming? For
> > example, switching between the production server and the test
> > environment.
> It's kind of a pain, and you wind up fighting with generic "Logon failed"
> errors a lot (even though half the time, the problem isn't actually a logon
> failure...), but once you've got the code written, you don't have to write
> it any more.
> Which brings up another major problem: lousy, lousy, lousy error messages.
> _Everything_ is either a "logon failure" or "the system has thrown an
> exception of type exception." Everything. I bet if I went through the .exe
> with a hex editor, those would be the only two error messages in there.
> Messages from the underlying data source are NEVER propogated up to you.
>
> > - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For
> > example, does the platform support a concept similar to object
> > inheritence where a new report can inherit design elements from
> > an existing design template...
> No.
>
> > ...or can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at
> > runtime?
> Yes.
>
> > - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web
> > based reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and also
> > polished paper based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> Once you endure the pain, the paper can be as good as you want it to be. The
> web view and the PDF can be a little or a lot off, though in general it's
> good enough. I've got a handful where the web view is just completely
> garbage. I would hope the WinForm viewer could do a better job than the
> WebForm viewer, since it's not constrained by HTML, but I don't know.
> If your're using the built-in toolbar in the web viewer, you have to put up
> with the stupid Crystal logo in your face or beat it into submission, either
> via CSS or by replacing the .gif.
> Rich interactivity? I think you can do some drill-down type stuff, but what
> I've seen I wouldn't call rich. We don't have a need for it, so I haven't
> tried it, but I don't have high hopes.
>
> > - Does the tool support a diverse range of data sources that
> > includes: SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> You can hit anything with an OLEDB or ODBC driver, which covers most any
> database you'd want to use. You can also bind to datasets, so anything you
> can put into a dataset can be sourced. If you buy the full-blown package you
> gain other sources, like MS Exchange, NT event logs, IIS logs, etc.
>
> > - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> Excel export can be pretty bad. A single report column can bounce between
> multiple Excel columns, headers don't line up with their data, lotsa blank
> columns thrown in sporadically, etc. It tries (poorly) to do an exact
> _visual_ recreation of the report in Excel, which is rarely what you really
> want when you're dumping to Excel. If you want a spreadsheet it's probably
> because you want to work with the data, which means you really don't want
> things like page breaks/headers/footers in the middle of data columns.
> PDF is better, but still has problems with WYSIWYG. When you compare screen
> output to printed output to PDF output, lines wrap in different places,
> columns may be wide enough when PDF'd but not when printed, things that are
> exactly aligned in the designer will be off a few pixels when PDF'd, and if
> you use non-default line spacing, the screen output (ASP.NET) goes totally
> to pot.
> There is no plain-text export option. You get rich text, Word, Excel, HTML,
> and PDF. (Remember, this is the version included with VS2K3.) No text, no
> CSV. Full-blown version gets you more.
>
> > - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> > (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> Lousy, lousy, lousy error messages. Regular crashes. $50K price tags. Stupid
> "keycodev2.dll" problems. Screwball object models. _Multiple_ screwball
> object models. (What Microsoft is to data access models, Crystal is to
> report object models.) Weird home-grown formula language. Deployment
> problems. Version conflicts. (This is NOT a .NET reporting platform. This a
> DLL-hell-based reporting platform with a .NET wrapper.)
>
> > - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
> > component?
> What report management component?
> Seriously, though, the version in the VS2K3 box is targeted for embedded use
> by developers, so there's nothing an administrator could use for anything.
> Crystal Enterprise probably does, but I don't know.
>
> > - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> > community?
> There's a well-established community of people who can't stand the product,
> but that's probably not what you meant...
>
>|||> Dewayne, the problems you listed those are problems you had with Crystal
> Reports? I'm new here and got way confused reading your post, no offence.
Correct. They're problems I've run into with the version of Crystal that
ships with VS2003.|||Since all of you seem to be very informed on CR and SQL Reporting
Services.. I have a few questions.
If you could find the time to answer them I would really appreciate
it.
To start, I work for a fortune 500 company that currently has 60+
reports in Crystal 9/10 and another branch has pretty much decided to
go RS. I have played around with RS to attempt to recreate some
reports that we have done in CR. I may be missing the boat here, but I
fail to see the benefits to moving to RS.
The RS interface is much slower than CR 10. One simple example is it
takes 6 seconds to BOLD text in the layout view in RS and CR does it
instantly.
The main problems I have with RS are:
The design interface is very slow to respond. Average time to return
to the layout to make another change is 6 seconds.
Forget about WYSIWYG, the layout rarely matches what gets shown in the
preview.
You have to create a table to group data while CR is drag and drop
anything pretty much anywhere.
You can't adjust the report in the preview in RS, so you have to
continually go to layout/design/layout/design, which is a real pain
when you are trying to fit as much data as you can on a report. We
have many of these.
I cannot get tight text and field groupings like I can get is CR.
There always seems to be too much whitespace around text and fields.
I can't put field names in headers, which I can in CR
Every time I go to preview view it takes like 30 seconds or more to
refresh the data. CR will show the layout changes instantly. I don't
want it to refresh data unless I tell it to.
..and how in the heck do you make and print a landscaped report? I
haven't figured that one out yet.
I'm sure there are benefits in the cost areas, because of CR's
licensing fees. In the design arena, I think RS
has a long way to go in the design department.
Thanks for your feedback.
On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:44:44 -0400, "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com>
wrote:
>If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
>and why?
>Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
>that are specific to our decision making:
>- What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting tool?
>For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
>- In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>- Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>intended for non-IT users?
>- How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes to
>the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
>production server and the test environment.
>- Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
>the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
>report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
>elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
>- How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
>rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based reports
>(like purchase orders and quotes)?
>- Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes: SQL
>Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>- How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>- What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>(licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>- Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
>- Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>community?
>|||LaceyLou <LaceyLou@.riders.com> wrote in
news:pbsei11rii0nff02vdtd4c2976n281lm5s@.4ax.com:
I've used both and decided to ditch Crystal. I think the design interface
in Crystal is vastly superior to RS. The deciding factor was cost. To be
effective in the Enterprise, Crystal needs the Crystal Server component.
I've read the analysis here:
http://www.crystalreportsbook.com/SSRSandCR_ExecSummary.asp
and I was not impressed when costs were discussed. The author failed to
mention that the $7,500 cost of CS only allows 5 concurent users. to
support 10, the cost goes up to $15,000. To support 20 it's $30,000. I've
looked at Crystal in a couple of different companies I've worked for, and
the cost of having Web deployment was always prohibitive.
One more thing to keep in mins, RS was not supposed to see the light of
day until SQL2005 came out. What we are using now is pretty much a quick
retrofit.
> Since all of you seem to be very informed on CR and SQL Reporting
> Services.. I have a few questions.
> If you could find the time to answer them I would really appreciate
> it.
> To start, I work for a fortune 500 company that currently has 60+
> reports in Crystal 9/10 and another branch has pretty much decided to
> go RS. I have played around with RS to attempt to recreate some
> reports that we have done in CR. I may be missing the boat here, but I
> fail to see the benefits to moving to RS.
> The RS interface is much slower than CR 10. One simple example is it
> takes 6 seconds to BOLD text in the layout view in RS and CR does it
> instantly.
> The main problems I have with RS are:
> The design interface is very slow to respond. Average time to return
> to the layout to make another change is 6 seconds.
> Forget about WYSIWYG, the layout rarely matches what gets shown in the
> preview.
> You have to create a table to group data while CR is drag and drop
> anything pretty much anywhere.
> You can't adjust the report in the preview in RS, so you have to
> continually go to layout/design/layout/design, which is a real pain
> when you are trying to fit as much data as you can on a report. We
> have many of these.
> I cannot get tight text and field groupings like I can get is CR.
> There always seems to be too much whitespace around text and fields.
> I can't put field names in headers, which I can in CR
> Every time I go to preview view it takes like 30 seconds or more to
> refresh the data. CR will show the layout changes instantly. I don't
> want it to refresh data unless I tell it to.
> ..and how in the heck do you make and print a landscaped report? I
> haven't figured that one out yet.
> I'm sure there are benefits in the cost areas, because of CR's
> licensing fees. In the design arena, I think RS
> has a long way to go in the design department.
> Thanks for your feedback.
>
>
>
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:44:44 -0400, "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
>>If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>>Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>>choose and why?
>>Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following
>>questions that are specific to our decision making:
>>- What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
>>tool? For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or
>>down time? - In your experience with using the tool, what important
>>features are missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>>- Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>>intended for non-IT users?
>>- How easily can a report's data source be changed without making
>>changes to the design template or programming? For example, switching
>>between the production server and the test environment.
>>- Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example,
>>does the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence
>>where a new report can inherit design elements from an existing design
>>template or can elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or
>>altered at runtime? - How suitable is the tool for developing public
>>facing web based reports, rich drill down type intranet reports, and
>>also polished paper based reports (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>>- Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that
>>includes: SQL Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>>- How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>>- What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>>(licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>>- Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
>>component? - Is there a well established developer and third party
>>tool vendor community?
>|||What about a possibility of making report with large amount of records now
(RS 2000) or in future (RS 2005)? i mean that "RS does everything in memory
(RAM)" and i get "out of memory" error while rendering large amount of data.
With Crystal evething is OK.
Thanks for answer
"Bruce L-C [MVP]" wrote:
> Keep in mind the improvements (report builder an end user tool which is in
> addition to report designer, user sortable columns, calendar control,
> extensions to be able to add own objects, new winform and webform controls,
> etc). Lots of new things coming with 2005
>
> --
> Bruce Loehle-Conger
> MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
> "Brian Bischof" <Brian@.NoSpamBischofSystems.com> wrote in message
> news:eoiamKEnFHA.4064@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> >I did some research on SSRS and wrote a white paper about it. You can check
> > it out on my website.
> >
> > www.CrystalReportsBook.com
> >
> >
> > HTH,
> >
> > Brian Bischof
> >
> >
> > "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> >> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> >> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
> >> choose
> >> and why?
> >>
> >> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> >> that are specific to our decision making:
> >> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
> > tool?
> >> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
> >> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> >> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> >> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> >> intended for non-IT users?
> >> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes
> > to
> >> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> >> production server and the test environment.
> >> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> >> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> >> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
> >> can
> >> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> >> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
> >> reports,
> >> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
> > reports
> >> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> >> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes:
> > SQL
> >> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> >> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> >> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> >> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> >> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> >> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> >> community?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>|||Depends on what you are rendering to. For instance, I want to pull 60,000
records into Excel. If you render to Excel you will take an extreme time and
most likely get an out of memory error. If you render to CSV ASCII format it
will have no trouble. PDF and Excel are both memory hogs. HTML, CSV take the
least resources. This does not change in RS 2005.
Bruce Loehle-Conger
MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
"olsh" <olsh@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5F1A2BE1-EAE2-4BC3-A8DB-1F9C1C19FA66@.microsoft.com...
> What about a possibility of making report with large amount of records now
> (RS 2000) or in future (RS 2005)? i mean that "RS does everything in
> memory
> (RAM)" and i get "out of memory" error while rendering large amount of
> data.
> With Crystal evething is OK.
> Thanks for answer
> "Bruce L-C [MVP]" wrote:
>> Keep in mind the improvements (report builder an end user tool which is
>> in
>> addition to report designer, user sortable columns, calendar control,
>> extensions to be able to add own objects, new winform and webform
>> controls,
>> etc). Lots of new things coming with 2005
>>
>> --
>> Bruce Loehle-Conger
>> MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
>> "Brian Bischof" <Brian@.NoSpamBischofSystems.com> wrote in message
>> news:eoiamKEnFHA.4064@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> >I did some research on SSRS and wrote a white paper about it. You can
>> >check
>> > it out on my website.
>> >
>> > www.CrystalReportsBook.com
>> >
>> >
>> > HTH,
>> >
>> > Brian Bischof
>> >
>> >
>> > "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> > news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> >> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
>> >> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
>> >> choose
>> >> and why?
>> >>
>> >> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following
>> >> questions
>> >> that are specific to our decision making:
>> >> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
>> > tool?
>> >> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down
>> >> time?
>> >> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
>> >> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
>> >> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
>> >> intended for non-IT users?
>> >> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making
>> >> changes
>> > to
>> >> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
>> >> production server and the test environment.
>> >> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example,
>> >> does
>> >> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a
>> >> new
>> >> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
>> >> can
>> >> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
>> >> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
>> >> reports,
>> >> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
>> > reports
>> >> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
>> >> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that
>> >> includes:
>> > SQL
>> >> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
>> >> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
>> >> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
>> >> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
>> >> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
>> >> component?
>> >> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
>> >> community?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>|||Hi,
Here some nice URLs for Reporting Services:
- Panorama Enterprise Reporter for online Reporting Services based on
SQL and OLAP data
- Cizer for online Reporting Services based on SQL and OLAP data
- ReportPortal for online Reporting Services based on SQL and OLAP data
and even Crystal support
Free trial can be downloaded/ordered on CD from www.gmsbv.nl
Regards, Marco
Bruce L-C [MVP] schreef:
> Depends on what you are rendering to. For instance, I want to pull 60,000
> records into Excel. If you render to Excel you will take an extreme time and
> most likely get an out of memory error. If you render to CSV ASCII format it
> will have no trouble. PDF and Excel are both memory hogs. HTML, CSV take the
> least resources. This does not change in RS 2005.
>
> --
> Bruce Loehle-Conger
> MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
> "olsh" <olsh@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5F1A2BE1-EAE2-4BC3-A8DB-1F9C1C19FA66@.microsoft.com...
> > What about a possibility of making report with large amount of records now
> > (RS 2000) or in future (RS 2005)? i mean that "RS does everything in
> > memory
> > (RAM)" and i get "out of memory" error while rendering large amount of
> > data.
> > With Crystal evething is OK.
> > Thanks for answer
> >
> > "Bruce L-C [MVP]" wrote:
> >
> >> Keep in mind the improvements (report builder an end user tool which is
> >> in
> >> addition to report designer, user sortable columns, calendar control,
> >> extensions to be able to add own objects, new winform and webform
> >> controls,
> >> etc). Lots of new things coming with 2005
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Bruce Loehle-Conger
> >> MVP SQL Server Reporting Services
> >>
> >> "Brian Bischof" <Brian@.NoSpamBischofSystems.com> wrote in message
> >> news:eoiamKEnFHA.4064@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> >> >I did some research on SSRS and wrote a white paper about it. You can
> >> >check
> >> > it out on my website.
> >> >
> >> > www.CrystalReportsBook.com
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > HTH,
> >> >
> >> > Brian Bischof
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> >> > news:OzBbSgCnFHA.3380@.TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> >> >> If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> >> >> Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you
> >> >> choose
> >> >> and why?
> >> >>
> >> >> Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following
> >> >> questions
> >> >> that are specific to our decision making:
> >> >> - What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting
> >> > tool?
> >> >> For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down
> >> >> time?
> >> >> - In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> >> >> missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> >> >> - Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> >> >> intended for non-IT users?
> >> >> - How easily can a report's data source be changed without making
> >> >> changes
> >> > to
> >> >> the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> >> >> production server and the test environment.
> >> >> - Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example,
> >> >> does
> >> >> the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a
> >> >> new
> >> >> report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or
> >> >> can
> >> >> elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> >> >> - How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based
> >> >> reports,
> >> >> rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based
> >> > reports
> >> >> (like purchase orders and quotes)?
> >> >> - Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that
> >> >> includes:
> >> > SQL
> >> >> Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> >> >> - How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> >> >> - What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> >> >> (licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> >> >> - Can an administrator write scripts for the report management
> >> >> component?
> >> >> - Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> >> >> community?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>|||Ciao. Take also a look at this reporting tool:
http://cam70.sta.uniroma1.it/TechnicalPreview/
Pamela
.NET Developer
Datatime Team|||I have no experience with CR, Please see my answers below with my few months
RS experience: (>>)
"LaceyLou" wrote:
> Since all of you seem to be very informed on CR and SQL Reporting
> Services.. I have a few questions.
> If you could find the time to answer them I would really appreciate
> it.
> To start, I work for a fortune 500 company that currently has 60+
> reports in Crystal 9/10 and another branch has pretty much decided to
> go RS. I have played around with RS to attempt to recreate some
> reports that we have done in CR. I may be missing the boat here, but I
> fail to see the benefits to moving to RS.
> The RS interface is much slower than CR 10. One simple example is it
> takes 6 seconds to BOLD text in the layout view in RS and CR does it
> instantly.
> The main problems I have with RS are:
> The design interface is very slow to respond. Average time to return
> to the layout to make another change is 6 seconds.
> Forget about WYSIWYG, the layout rarely matches what gets shown in the
> preview.
> You have to create a table to group data while CR is drag and drop
> anything pretty much anywhere.
>> You don't have to create a table, you can put textbox anywhere. Try import report from sample access "Northwind.mdb", you will find some reports grouping without table.
> You can't adjust the report in the preview in RS, so you have to
> continually go to layout/design/layout/design, which is a real pain
> when you are trying to fit as much data as you can on a report. We
> have many of these.
> I cannot get tight text and field groupings like I can get is CR.
> There always seems to be too much whitespace around text and fields.
> I can't put field names in headers, which I can in CR
>>That space may because, in the report property, layout tab, there is "spacing" of columns, default is 0.5in.
> Every time I go to preview view it takes like 30 seconds or more to
> refresh the data. CR will show the layout changes instantly. I don't
> want it to refresh data unless I tell it to.
> ...and how in the heck do you make and print a landscaped report? I
> haven't figured that one out yet.
>> Set the page size to 11in(W), 8.5in(H), in layout tab of report properties.
> I'm sure there are benefits in the cost areas, because of CR's
> licensing fees. In the design arena, I think RS
> has a long way to go in the design department.
> Thanks for your feedback.
>
>
>
> On Mon, 8 Aug 2005 10:44:44 -0400, "Tony" <someone@.microsoft.com>
> wrote:
> >If your IT department were in a position to choose between Crystal
> >Enterprise 11 and Reporting Services 2005, which platform would you choose
> >and why?
> >
> >Also, if you don't mind answering one or more of the following questions
> >that are specific to our decision making:
> >- What is your overall impression about the stablity of the reporting tool?
> >For example, what known bugs may cause backend maintenance or down time?
> >- In your experience with using the tool, what important features are
> >missing and did you find a suitable work around?
> >- Does the tool have an easy to use and feature rich report designer
> >intended for non-IT users?
> >- How easily can a report's data source be changed without making changes to
> >the design template or programming? For example, switching between the
> >production server and the test environment.
> >- Does the tool support the re-use of design templates? For example, does
> >the platform support a concept similar to object inheritence where a new
> >report can inherit design elements from an existing design template or can
> >elements of a report be suppressed, enabled, or altered at runtime?
> >- How suitable is the tool for developing public facing web based reports,
> >rich drill down type intranet reports, and also polished paper based reports
> >(like purchase orders and quotes)?
> >- Does the tools support a diverse range of data sources that includes: SQL
> >Server, Oracle, Analysis Services, and XML?
> >- How well does the tool render to Excel, PDF, and text?
> >- What aspects of the tool would impact the total cost of ownership
> >(licenses, additional hardware, training, etc.)?
> >- Can an administrator write scripts for the report management component?
> >- Is there a well established developer and third party tool vendor
> >community?
> >
>